This game is ABSOLUTELY worth picking up and playing.
Review 174
Released: September 8, 2003
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Square Enix
Game Genre: Fantasy Turn-Based Strategy
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
ESRB Descriptors: Mild Violence, Alcohol Reference
Opening Thoughts:
I am a big fan of all the Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy VII was the first RPG I ever played, and I fell in love with the genre from there. To top it off, I believe that no console plays RPGs better than the Gameboy Advance. Let's see…Final Fantasy + Gameboy Advance = Success? We'll see.
Story: 30%
Gameplay: 40%
Graphics: 20%
Durability: 10%
Story (9/10)
The story is a bit atypical of the Final Fantasy series. The game begins in the real world, where Marche, Ritz, and Mewt are engaged in a snowball fight with the other students from class. After being picked on for quite some time, the fight ends and the three meet up in Marche's home with his brother Doned. The four of them read a book called 'Final Fantasy'. Well, overnight, the world changes dramatically…
Gameplay (8/10)
FFTA is better than your average turn-based strategy game. Your party (called a clan in the game) is very adaptable. There are a ton of different things you can do and different strategies you can implement. There are way more character 'jobs' than the amount of characters you can actually handle, leaving you with plenty of choice. Each job has certain abilities it can learn, and this is what truly makes FFTA unique. Skills and abilities are learned via equipment worn. After each battle, the characters used gain AP, which goes towards learning abilities. When an ability is mastered, you can use it without that equipment equipped.
The battle system is not out of the ordinary. If you've played another turn-based strategy game on the GBA, you won't find much of a difference here. Up to 6 characters can be used in a battle (4 or 5 for some battles) and you either have to defeat all enemies, or only the enemy boss.
Graphics (7/10)
There is nothing fancy, no shiny cutscenes or cool attacks. The game doesn't really need fancy graphics, however. They do the job well enough.
Durability (9/10)
Wow. I mean that in a good way and a bad way. I beat this game with 90 hours of gameplay. I left 97 sidequests aside. You figure it out. The length of the game is great in itself, but there is a lot of repetition involved with the sidequests. The storyline itself could probably be beaten in around 30 hours.
Overall Score (8.5/10)
Final Thoughts:
This game is ABSOLUTELY worth picking up and playing. Even non-RPG gamers will find this game entertaining.